Look who has their MCSE now.

undomiel

ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I passed!

By the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.

I took the 70-298 first. Started attacking it like it was a speed test but then realized that the time limit really wasn't that pressing. I had 5 testlets and 35 questions. I felt pretty good on that test though I ran into a few surprises. Definitely be sure you read the questions on this one and then look through the case studies several times to make sure you didn't miss anything. I'm a little bit disappointed in my score but that's ok. This test didn't feel as well written as Microsoft's other tests. It had a bit of the ambiguity surrounding the Security+. But all in all if you understand everything you learned in the core tests then you shouldn't have too much of a problem with this test. Don't let the testlet format throw you. This is also the only Microsoft test that I actually maxed out a section bar on! Creating the conceptual design for network infrastructure security by gathering and analyzing business and technical requirements. I scored a 757

Then I turned around and stepped right back in for the 70-294. My momentum was immediately killed by the first question because I was sure of exactly how to deal with the presented situation efficiently and correctly, but none of the answers fit! Back to doing it the Microsoft way. I couldn't build up steam through this test either. 42 questions with 3 simulations. The first half was really boring. I'll be quite happy to not look at a site diagram for a while! The second half got better and was a lot more enjoyable. I had problems with the drag and drop questions on several though. They felt like they didn't include all of the information that was supposed to be there. For several I felt like I was just throwing darts at a dartboard. It was very odd. Of course it could have just been me not quite understanding. I scraped by this test with my worst test score so far: 700.

Completely excited to finally have my MCSE now! Video games and anime for today then updating the resume and job searching for this weekend!

Oh and I wanted to add my thank list as well. Thanks to snadam for all of the study materials! Thanks to dynamik for being himself (take it as you will). Thanks to TE for all of the help. Thanks to my wife for putting up with me. And of course thanks to God for without Him I would have fallen flat on my face from day one.

Total time for MCSE: 7 months, 8 if you count my aborted study attempt in December for the Security+.

SWM

Well done